Tampering a sign of toxic culture in team

I HONESTLY cannot recall the last time an Australian team copped a hammering like our cricketers are right now.

Steve Smith and co have already been hung, drawn and quartered and I imagine more pain is to come after the official investigation.

The matter itself, the ball tampering, isn’t that big an issue in my book.

After all there are too many examples of it to list here – not that it justifies what our team has done.

The biggest issue in my mind is how we now view the Australian team.

We’re told that only Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft knew of the plan to tamper with the ball.

But like it or not every player has now been tarred with the same brush.

We’ve been exposed as hypocrites, liars and cheats.

How do we know this type of “play” hasn’t happened before?

Why didn’t someone stop it? Where was coach Darren Lehmann? Surely he knew what was happening and if he honestly didn’t what is he actually doing as coach?

Unfortunately it brings into question all our results – including those of players who honestly were not involved.

I was okay with a little sledging – it’s never ideal but as long as it doesn’t cross the line it can be somewhat overlooked.

But it would appear that Australia’s sledging is a symptom of a much more toxic culture deeply embedded in the team.

I don’t for a second think this incident was spur of the moment.

We’ve been in tougher situations before and not resorted to cheating – as far as we know.

At face value this appears to be something players have discussed or attempted before.

Heads need to roll and the punishments need to be severe.

The ball tampering is the least of our worries.

We need to rebuild the trust broken in the Test team and it needs to start now.